Wanted: cosy pyjamas for foster kids

The Pyjama Foundation is known for providing literacy and mentor programs to children in foster care. But now they are also embarking on a Pyjama Drive, seeking donations for some of our most vulnerable youth.

The Pyjama Foundation is an Australian children's charity which recruits, screens, trains and supports volunteers who work with foster children and support foster families.

These volunteers deliver the organisation's Love of Learning Program, a literacy-based mentoring program designed for children in care.

There are around 31,000 children in foster care in Australia, a figure which doubled in the last decade.

The Pyjama Foundation's Gold Coast Co-ordinator, Stephanie Reardon, says over 500 of these children are in care on the Gold Coast and are in dire need of help with their reading skills.

"The need is enormous. These are under privileged children and often they have never had anything to with books and reading. Their early lives have been about survival," she says.

Because of this the children fall behind, a problem Stephanie says is highlighted by these statistics:

-92% of children in care are below the average reading level at age seven-75% of these children do not complete schooling-50% of the homeless come from a care background-35% enter the juvenile justice system at some point (82% of Australian prisoners have below grade 4 level of functional literacy)-28% of care-leavers are parents within 12 months of leaving care

"So it is a very serious problem that we feel needs to be addressed," she says.

And addressing it they are, by recruiting volunteers to simply read to foster children.

Stephanie says "there is research from Oxford University which states that the single most beneficial way of improving a child's literacy level is to read books aloud to them."

This is the role of the foundation's army of volunteers, the 'Pyjama Angels'.

Mandy Bergamin is one of more than 1000 Pyjama Angels throughout Queensland.

"Our role is to foster the love of learning through reading to these children that just haven't had the opportunities to enjoy stories at night before bed time and things like that," she says.

Mandy says having the time to read to the children is a luxury for most busy foster homes, and she is happy to help ease the load.

"The family home that I go into each week is just a thriving hub, kids going in all directions all the time, the parents are very pressed for time.

"So that's my little child's one-on-one time - we do her homework and we read stories that are of interest to her so it just gives her a special little time all of her own.

"I read to my children when they were little and I read to my grandchildren now and I think it's such a shame if children don't have that in their life."

Mandy says it's also good to see the positive changes her visits make.

"The improvement in her confidence levels and in her reading levels have skyrocketed and that's such a reward for everyone."

The Pyjama Drive

The Pyjama Foundation holds a Pyjama Drive each year in March.

Last year over 7 000 pairs of PJs were collected for foster children throughout Queensland, and this year the goal is 10 000.

The organisation is asking for donations of new PJs (with labels on).

"Often children come into foster care and they have nothing," says Stephanie.

"They may not have any clothes or they may just have a few so they're very much in need of things like pyjamas."

She says pyjamas are the clothing of choice for donations because they tie in and relate back to the organisations name, and are also symbolic of home comforts.

"It's lovely for the children - some may never have had pyjamas and for them to have a cosy pair of pyjamas for winter is wonderful."